Staff Member

TORONTO - The answer to how you stop a red-hot Ricky Ray came exactly 8:41 into the game.

Ray had just marched the Argos down the field in surgeon-like precision cut the Stampeders defence apart on an eight-play 65-yard touchdown drive to open the game.
In the drive Ray was a perfect 5-for-5 passing, finishing the drive off with a perfect 19-yard toss to Jason Barnes that landed so softly in his hands you would have sworn your neighbour’s 10-year-old son could have hauled it in.
But on the first play of the very next drive all of that was immediately forgotten.
Ray, chased out of the pocket and rolling to his right held on to the ball just a little too long. Maybe it was that sky-high confidence that only a run like Ray was on could create, but by holding on just a little too long, Ray opened himself up to a charging bull in the form of rush end Charleston Hughes.
Hughes arrived just as Ray released the ball and wound up coming down on the Argos quarterback with all of his 247 pounds on top of him.

The Argos lost a game on Friday night, but the bigger question is have they lost the season?
Calgary stopped Toronto’s four-game win streak with a runaway 35-14 win at the Rogers Centre. What hurts most, though, is that Ricky Ray suffered what appeared to be a right shoulder injury early in the first quarter and never returned.
Ray will be re-evaluated Saturday but the Argos are fortunate they have until next Tuesday to prepare for their next game — with, or without him.
“It’s always tough when your star quarterback goes out,” said coach Scott Milanovich. “I don’t have a lot of answers for you. He tried to throw a bit afterwards in the tunnel, but we decided to be safe with him.”

It’s two points in the standings but it means much more than that to Kevin Glenn and the Calgary Stampeders.
Glenn threw two first-half TD passes before leaving for precautionary reasons as injury-plagued Calgary beat the Toronto Argonauts 35-14 on Friday night in a rematch of last year’s Grey Cup game. The Stampeders (6-2) won despite missing veteran slotback Nik Lewis (fractured fibula), receiver Maurice Price (ankle), offensive lineman Dimitri Tsoumpas (concussion) and running back Jon Cornish (thigh contusion).

TORONTO — All week long, Ricky Ray had talked about how comfortable he felt, how things were finally clicking with him and the offence.

In his second year with the Toronto Argonauts, the 33-year-old quarterback had led the defending Grey Cup champions to the top of the East Division standings. He was riding a four-game winning streak and had just been named offensive player of the week. He was playing some of the best football of his career.
And then, just like that, it came to crushing end.

It was the scenario the Argos could least afford — Ricky Ray prone on the Rogers Centre turf, his shoulder injured, his magical season set back considerably.
It was one of those routine football plays that happen hundreds of times a season, a quarterback flushed out of the pocket, scrambling, throwing on the run, hit from the side and knocked awkwardly to the turf.
And the result of the game — a 35-14 loss to the Calgary Stampeders in front of a crowd announced at 21,157 — was almost secondary, so reliant are the Argos on Ray, who had been having as a season for the ages.
There is no official word on the severity of the injury — Ray has already missed a game this season with a strained knee ligament — but if the veteran misses any significant amount of time, it could scuttle what has been an excellent start to the season.